Public key encryption (PKE) is an asymmetric form of encryption that utilizes two keys for each endpoint, a public key and a private key. The private key is kept private by the endpoint, while the complementary public key is made publicly available. Information encrypted with a public key can be unencrypted with a private key, and information encrypted with a private key can be unencrypted with a public key. The public key infrastructure (PKI) uses public key encryption to provide authentication of endpoints.
Information may be encrypted with a first endpoint's private key and transmitted to a second endpoint. The second endpoint uses the first endpoint's complementary public key to decrypt the encrypted information thereby authenticating the first endpoint. The second endpoint can also encrypt information with the second entity's private key, and the first endpoint can decrypt the encrypted information with second entity's public key in order to authenticate the second endpoint.